Hello.

We are Heidi and Emily.

Sisters. Heidi teaches 2nd grade. Emily formerly taught 2nd grade and currently stays home with her 2 year old daughter. We are passionate about making education fun for little ones and teachers alike. We share ideas, tutorials and free downloads here. In our shop you'll find printable games for the classroom and home as well as classroom resources like homework, lessons and workbooks. Read more about us here.

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Words are not just words. They are the nexus—the interface—between communication and thought. When we read, it is through words that we build, refine, and modify our knowledge. What makes vocabulary valuable and important is not the words themselves so much as the understandings they afford.

--Marilyn Jager Adams

A couple of years ago, I read a post about vocabulary on Jen Jones’s blog Hello Literacy. It’s a great post on a fabulous blog. Jen mentions that in her district, every classroom is required to use vocabulary journals:

Vocabulary Notebooks are also in practice in all K-5 classrooms and is an academic accountability component of our School Improvement Plan (SIP).

Using "tights and looses" language, vocabulary notebooks are a tight, the physical way they look and kept are classroom looses...teachers and grade levels decide this piece.

When I first read this, I was swamped with a huge wave of teacher guilt/panic. Jen’s district feels vocabulary journals are important enough to mandate their use. I don’t use vocabulary journals. I HAVE RUINED ALL THE CHILDREN!!

I stewed a bit in the teacher guilt/panic and then I got to work.

I thought about what I needed as a teacher and what would be most helpful for students. I knew, if I didn’t want vocabulary journals to become more well-intentioned clutter, whatever I used had to be an on-going program. I don’t know if you’re like me, but every year there seems to be at least one (usually two or three) good ideas I plan to implement and by the time we’re to Thanksgiving it’s a once-in-a-while thing and by the time Valentine’s rolls around, no one remembers ever doing it. I have a little teacher cemetery of good ideas that died that way. I felt vocabulary was too important to suffer that fate, so I needed a way to keep it in the weekly routine and not leave it up to “when I think of it.”

I was also starting Daily 5 at this time, so I had to coordinate with that program as well. Plus, I wanted our vocabulary program to tie into a book. Let’s give these new words as much context as we can, right? Also, I just love books! I was sad that I didn’t have time for many of my favorite holiday-themed books, so I picked something festive for our weekly focus. I scanned each book and selected four Tier 2 words that I thought would be useful for the kids. (For more about Tier 2 words, check out our post on vocabulary.) I tried to choose words with definitions with which the children would have some familiarity. For example, the word lug would be good to teach because kids already understand the word drag.

For each child, I bought a spiral-bound notebook (a composition notebook would work too, but I'm cheap and we're not allowed to ask parents for supplies). This is our Jargon Journal. I added a label to the front and used packing tape to stick an envelope to the inside of the front cover. The first year I laminated the envelopes first, but with the packing tape I found that was unnecessary. [Note: The photo below shows the style of flap we used to use but we are including it here for an example of student work.]

The first pages of the notebook are used for a word bank. This is a place for students to collect interesting words they come across in their reading. My original plan for this word bank required the teacher to personally mark and label each page for each journal. Pretty unfeasible! To save you some grief, we came up with some glue-ins. The kids can do most of the work, but you’ll want to supervise that each paper gets glued onto the right page (the kids skip pages so easily!) and you’re good to go for the year! You can get the printables for the Word Bank in our Tools for Vocabulary Instruction pack.

Because our spelling program is a little intense, we only do Daily 5 four days a week. That gave me a perfect chunk of time on Fridays (last year it was on Mondays), for some vocabulary work. Friday morning, when we would normally do our first Daily 5 station, I gather the class. On the board I post our fist-to-five posters. Then I put up the first of the vocabulary words. Each student ranked his/her familiarity with the word by showing a fist (0 fingers) meaning: I’ve never heard this word before. At the other end was the 5 (showing all 5 fingers) poster: I can tell you everything about this word and use it in my writing.

We had to talk—a lot—about what it means to “know” a word. Second graders often think, “Well, I’ve heard this word so I must know it!” But being able to recognize a word or even tell what it means isn’t the same as knowing that word. Unless you can use it correctly in various contexts, you don’t really know a word. Knowing a Tier 2 word at that deep of level is really hard for 2nd graders!

After the kids rate the word, I share a kid friendly definition (or have one of the kids who showed 5 fingers share what they think). We discuss examples and usage. Then I show the book and we predict how that word will be used in the story. These steps are repeated for the remaining 3 words. (You can read more about assessment with the Fist-to-Five activity in this post about vocabulary assessment and pick up your own copies in our Tools for Vocabulary Instruction pack.)

The kids gather on the rug for the story. I read aloud the book and if they hear one of our 4 words, they make a soft, “Ding!” If you didn’t know, that’s the sound a light bulb makes when it turns on in your brain! I pause in the story and we compare our earlier predictions with the way the word was used in our story. Then I continue reading till we’ve finished the book. This whole process takes from 20-40 minutes (depending on how much I talk!).

Later in the afternoon, I distribute a foldable vocabulary page. The paper is folded vertically into a gatefold and cut horizontally and a bottom strip cut off (so the page will fit in the notebook). Four little lines are snipped on each fold, which is why my students refer to these as “Vocabulary Flaps”. There is one flap for each word and another flap next to it for the definition.

If you're having students make these, have them cut the bottom strip off. Then stress FOLDING BEFORE CUTTING. It will save you a lot of headaches if the word flaps are all folded first. Also, point out the little octagon on each line. That's the STOP CUTTING! mark.

As a class, we generate a very simple, student friendly (2-3 word) definition of each word. I write these on the board and the kids write it on the right side of their vocabulary flap.

On the inside is a place to mark the part of speech (noun, verb, adjective or adverb).

They also include a personal connection, “What meaning does this word have in your life?” They may use the word in this connection, but I don’t mandate it. And I don’t require that they use the word in a sentence. That’s because these activities are just an introduction. It takes a lot of experiences before children know these words well enough to use them in context.

Think about the word thaw. If a student understands the meaning to be, “something frozen melting” They may write this sentence: My ice cream is thawing. It’s technically right, but it lacks an understanding of nuance—an understanding that only comes with time and repeated exposure to the word. A more mature learner would understand that thaw often connotes something returning to its normal state after being very cold; therefore, melt would be a more appropriate word to use in the context of ice cream becoming soup. (This is the same reason why, in the Morning Work, I provide a sentence stem before asking children to use the word in context.)

Anyway, continuing on with the Vocab Flaps...

On the right is a place to draw a picture of the word or connection. Visual representations provide vital support for helping kids internalize words. Of course, at the beginning we go through all of this together. We brainstorm ideas for an appropriate picture and talk about why a simple sketch—just to help your brain remember—is more important than a detailed drawing that will take 45 minutes to finish!

After they’ve finished their Vocab Flaps, and shown me!, I give them a sheet of word cards. These are practice activities for the 4 words we’re focusing on for the week.

The students cut the cards apart and store them in the envelope taped to the inside cover. [Note: The photo below shows the style of flap we used to use but we are including it here for an example of student work.]

I used to hand out the word cards and Vocab Flaps at the same time, but I found the kids were just copying the pictures on the card instead of thinking of their own. So now they don’t see the cards until their drawing is finished.

The Jargon Journal is then put away for the day. Once they're used to the routine, some kids will have everything cut, glued, and filled out in 5 minutes. Some kids will drag their feet for 20 minutes. You know how it goes! I had one kid who was the slowest cutter ON THE PLANET! I pre-cut his to save me some weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The next day, the journal comes back out during our Daily 5 time. When students get to the Work on Writing station, they must do a vocabulary card first. They select one of their 4 cards and glue it to the top of the next page in their journal. We practice drawing a line more-or-less through the middle of the page (teaching them to start at the middle hole of the page is a good guideline). They’ll need room to write on the page as well, so teaching the students to glue the first card near the top of the page and the second card near the mid-line is important.

Each card has a definition, picture, and sentence using the word in context. Then the children answer some simple questions about the word. Last, there is a prompt for the children to respond to in their journals. The answers may be simple, but enforcing a “use complete sentences” rule is important to their development as writers.

During the course of the week, the kids do one word card each day, although they might have to double up if it’s a short week. At the end of the week, we do a review activity.

The review is designed to include LOTS of active participation. Acquiring word knowledge is a hands-on sort of thing. Kids have to make meaning for themselves.

After the review, I give them a short (5 question) quiz on this week’s words. This is just a quick way for me to see who gets it.

I also hang a laminated page on the wall showing this week's words. The poster stays on the wall all year. That way, when we come across one of our vocabulary words, we can add a tally mark. Later we can see which of our vocabulary words are used most often. It's a lot of fun to be reading aloud and hear a chorus of little, "dings" as mental light bulbs are lit. The kids remember the words better than I do!

It can be a lot of work to teach this way, but it's been so useful for my kiddos. When a student brings me their silent reading book to show me one of our vocabulary words from 3 months ago that she recognized in her reading, it just makes my day. And when they use one of our words in their writing, I feel like I might be doing okay at this teaching thing after all!

I know it's a little late in February for a new Valentine idea, but I just threw together this Valentine for something yesterday and thought I'd share the free download with you!

A couple of notes: The pencils were 8 for $1 at the Target Dollar Spot. The width of a pencil is a bit bigger than a traditional hole punch so I made circles in the right size on the tags and just punched a few holes with the punch until the circle was filled. And the pencil rounds out the hole nicely when you put it through.

This was easy, quick, and cheap! Plus it's a Valentine without candy and aren't all parents and teachers happy for another one of those ideas?

We retired Easy as Pie from our etsy shop and we are now offering it as a free download for you! It's the perfect way to add a little math practice to some Thanksgiving fun next week.

Concept: addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts

Game Type: board game for 2-4 players

Includes: game board, rules, instructions, and a bonus skill sheet

With Easy as Pie!, students roll a dice three times and take the corresponding pie pieces. Then the student adds the numbers on the pie pieces together. It's as Easy as Pie! The winner is the player with the most points after 5 rolls. The great part about this game is it works for several different levels. This game can be played using addition, subtraction or multiplication. As an extra bonus, with Easy as Pie! you also receive a special skill sheet to give your student additional practice with math facts.

Note: This product is currently under major renovation! We have just uploading 20 passages with the new leveled design to the bundle. We will update this post with more information when the bundle is complete. In the meantime, if you purchase this product before it's complete you will receive the finished levels + the old version of the product. Click here to download a free sampler of the newly redesigned fluency homework.

Do you DIBELS?

Doesn’t that sound like it should be something fabulous? Or scandalous! Not so much when you know it stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. Basically a very long name for reading fluency assessments.

Prior to my school adopting the program I hadn’t given much thought to assessing and tracking reading fluency. Once that became part of our literacy routine, my level of concern regarding fluency went way up! I nosed around on-line to see what other teachers were doing to help their kids improve their reading and came across a literacy coach’s blog. I’ve long since lost the link to her site (sorry anonymous literacy coach!!), but she suggested weekly fluency homework. My team started using this in the fall of 2008. At the time I’d just write a random story and put it in the homework template. I had a huge ah-ha moment in the middle of that year when I gave the kids a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s Steadfast Tin Soldier. That story came up in discussion the following week and I was amazed by the thoroughness of their retellings.

>Cue the lightbulb over my head.<

If I’m going to make them read a story 4 times, it should be worthy of rereading and it should meet more standards than just fluency!

Over the past 4 years I’ve tweaked and edited and revamped. In fact, of that orginal batch of stories only The Steadfast Tin Soldier remains. So what do we have? 35 original weekly passages organized with the story on one page. Parent tips and comprehension questions are on the back. (Actually, my team shrunk these down so the story/questions sit side-by-side on one page and we copy the week’s spelling homework on the back. Anything to save paper, right?) Each four week section is organized around a theme and includes fiction and nonfiction passages. Over the course of the year the passages cover a variety of genres: informational text, fable, biography, myth, folktale, tall tale, etc. All of it is common core aligned. For example, the core for 2nd grade says:

Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic.

So we have 4 passages on koalas. The students read an informational text, fiction story with koalas as the main characters, Australian myth about koalas, and a nonfiction piece about the koala rescued by firefighters in 2009. The students are asked to find similarities and differences among the different passages.

Under the core, students are supposed to read folktales from various cultures and point out their theme. Going along with that, my favorite set of stories focuses on the same theme: eat me when I’m fatter. The kids get a kick out of these, too! There’s the Three Billy Goats Gruff that we’re all familiar with. Also a folktale from Tibet and a story of Brer Rabbit. And (I’m rather proud of) an original story involving a helpless seal and a hungry orca. (Don’t worry the seal tricks the orca and gets away safely!)

Our fluency topics:

School and friendship

Things that come in 3s

Eat me when I’m fatter

Fable vs. Fact

Denmark: Legos and Hans Christian Andersen

India: the Mongoose and Rudyard Kipling

Koalas

Mississippi River lore (7 weeks)

This is part of our weekly homework. On Mondays I distribute the story to the class. I read it to them while they follow along with their plastic witch finger (you have to make them follow along or about half of them drift off). Then we choral read it as a class and complete the comprehension questions together. This goes into the homework folder and I don’t see it again till they turn it in Friday morning. While it’s at home, it’s expected that a parent or older sibling time them for 1 minute and record the total words read correctly.

The pages is set up to make this run as smoothly as possible for mom and dad. The main focus is, of course, the story. The number of words for each line is noted to the right side.

Because the ultimate purpose of reading fluency is to improve comprehension, we have to give the students stories that are long enough to require some thought. So even though the goal for 2nd grade is to read 90/minutes by the end of the year, these stories are longer than that.

Also, fluency passages have to be on the students’ independent level. Since 2nd graders are shooting for the 90 words/minute goal, the first 100 words (or so) I tried to keep to a 2nd grade level. (Let me tell you that was a trick with some of the biographies!) I figured kids who could read faster than that needed more of a challenge, so the text gets harder the further you go. Also, as the year progresses the overall texts get more complex.

I tried lots of different formulas to figure the readibility for each story and, you know what? Nobody agrees on what exactly grade-level is! So I went with my best guess. Very scientific! I figured I’ve taught 2nd grade for 11 years. That’s 11 years of guided reading with books on level C,D,E…N,O,P. I can pretty closely determine a guided reading level just based on my own experience. So, in my opinion, the first 4 weeks would level about an F. (Lower than a 2nd grade level, but remember we’re shooting for independence here!) After that it goes up: G, H…I don’t think it gets much harder than about an L/M. (For kids starting 2nd grade lower than an E, we send home one of these stories instead.)

At the bottom of the story is a place for mom or dad to record the words read. (Update: this portion now reads "day 1" etc. instead of the days of the week so you can use it more flexibly.)

[Part legitimate question/part snarky rhetoric: Teachers who are required to document the core standard on everything, does this actually make you a better teacher or is it yet another meaningless, time-swallowing hoop to jump through?]

On the 2nd page there’s a box for Parent Tips.

I tried to balance straight prodedural tips (like the one above) with quotes from experts about the importance of reading fluency.

Then there are 4 questions: three multliple choice and one open-ended essay question intended to help the kids connect with the story on a personal level. These questions lead to some great classroom discussion, just FYI.

And what’s that in the bottom corner? That’s right--more core documentation! This time it relates to the Reading Literature or Reading Informational Text standards that the questions support.

It’s such a thrill to watch how the students’ rate goes up over the course of the year. I’ve found this weekly assigment to be such a good assessment.

Earlier this week I was looking through some of our Words Their Way posts and noticed that we gave away the game "Smackdown" but the link to the download was buried in another post and it was hard to find. To make it easier, I'm sharing the game here again.

Smackdown is a slap-jack like card game for two players. The game teaches VCV and VCCV patterns. It coordinates with Words Their Way Syllabiles & Affixes stage (Syllable Juncture).

The download includes directions, the game, and a practice skill sheet.

We've got a new printable busy bag activity for you in honor of St. Patrick's day. Counting Leprechaun Gold. There are 10 pots of gold, each with a number 1-10. Using plastic gold coins, chocolate coins, pennies, or the printable coins included in the download, your little one will count out enough coins to match the number on each pot. Pretty simple! I rounded the corners of my pages but you certainly don't need to. If you hope to use the cards many times you might consider laminating it.

Just a note, we call this a busy bag because that's our "thing" around here. But this could be a tot tray activity, a preschool center activity, a St. Patrick's Day party game or whatever you want it to be!

Download the Counting Leprechaun Gold busy bag for free Counting Leprechaun Gold busy bag. If you like this printable we'd love if you shared it on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest!

Use the pattern cards and heart cut outs to make colorful heart patterns. This is a great opportunity to practice continuing patterns and building your own patterns.

I used wooden heart discs from Hobby Lobby for our bag. I painted them red, pink and blue with acrylic paint. I actually painted enough for two bags. You only need 4 of each color to do any of the pattern cards.

When you download the files you'll find a page of colored heart patterns and a page of AB letter patterns with some blank hearts you can color yourself.

If you don't want to use wooden discs, I have a couple of options for you. First, you can print out the pages of colored heart cards.

Or if you have a Silhouette cutter, you can use the Silhouette studio file I included to cut out the hearts on any colored paper you wish!

She also made me a muffin tin meal planner and we're sharing the planning page with you today! You can download the page here and print out as many as you want for your own planning book, or just print them as you need them.

Here are a couple of meals I've thrown together recently for our color themed "Mommy School" (more on that later.) Having the tools on hand made it really easy to whip these up.

After last week's INSANITY (Halloween, torrential rain = inside recess, power outage, field trip) it was a relief to get back to normal today. It gave us the first real chance to try out the November writing prompts. I gathered a bunch of journal ideas from the internet and wrote each one on a leaf. I put them all in a pumpkin and the kids could pick one if they wanted.

I found leaves and pumpkin at Roberts Craft for 75% off!! Score! Writing on the leaves was a bit tricky. I tried markers first, but they bled too much. I ended up using my favorite Muji pen and it turned out great. I imagine any gel pen would work as well.

Here are the prompts I thought would appeal to my 2nd graders. They're not my original ideas, but I didn't think to pay attention to my sources while I was collecting them.

Write a letter to a fall tree. Try to convince the tree not to drop its leaves.

What will you do during Thanksgiving break?

Write a recipe for cooking a turkey.

What if you found a magical pumpkin patch?

What if Thanksgiving were in the summer?

If your Thanksgiving turkey burned, what would you eat?

Imagine you'll turn into a pumpkin at midnight tonight. Write about all the things you'd like to do before you turn into a pumpkin.

Once upon a time there was a turkey who never...

Tell about your favorite thing about autumn.

Imagine the school voted you principal. What would you do? What changes would you make?

Write about an autumn day. What would you do? Tell about the colors, smells, tastes, and sounds.

Would a turkey make a good pet? Why or why not?

If you could have whatever you wanted for Thanksgiving dinner, what would you have?

Write a story about a squirrel getting ready for winter.

I also got the new lists posted, as well. This still isn't nearly as popular a choice as journals and letter writing are. In fact, I think maybe 2 kids chose it all of October. For now, at least, I'm going to keep offering it.

We didn't get a chance to share any new Halloween posts with you this year. We've both just been crazy busy with other projects (busy bags, anyone??)

But we do have some fun ideas you may have missed so I've rounded up the ideas + freebies for you all in one post. And keep reading because at the end you'll find a FREE game that we're retiring from the shop. Yippee for free.